Land is the key to Gaydamak's Pompey standoff

Portsmouth and former owner Alexandre Gaydamak are at loggerheads over plots of the club's land. Photograph: Matthew Impey/PA

Portsmouth's long, slow death will be solved at a stroke if they can untangle a multimillion-pound property riddle.

Alexandre Gaydamak, the former owner, is owed £28m by Pompey and has something they want: the land that he separated from the club when he sold it. The acreage has no monetary value to him, since planning restrictions demand developments be tied to the club. But Gaydamak knows it is his best bet on recouping his £28m, since the property is worth a lot to new owner, Ali al-Faraj, as the land combined with the stadium are required for a viable development prospect.

Faraj et al, who are keeping the club on life-support with a drip feed of funding until the situation becomes clearer, are not at Fratton Park for the love of Portsmouth. The Saudi and his brother, Ahmed, hold a multimillion-pound London property portfolio looked after by Ahmed's fellow Pompey director, Mark Jacob, a property lawyer. Their fellow directors in the club's holding company, Falcondrone, are Israeli property developers.

Gaydamak has said he was contracted to sign back the property deeds to the club for £1 last month if conditions, including the payment of a £2.5m debt to Barclays and a £9m instalment on Gaydamak's £28m loans, had been met. The first of those conditions was not met and so Gaydamak holds the land. And in the midst of the standoff, Portsmouth head for a winding-up hearing in court next month.

Australia in Cup battle

If 2009 was an annus horribilis for England's 2018 World Cup bid – at least until David Beckham's appearance at the World Cup draw – neither did its Australian counterpart emerge unscathed. A row between the bid campaign on the one hand and the Australian Rugby League and Aussie-Rules governing bodies on the other has led to the government setting up a task force to settle it. The ARL and AFL are demanding compensation for the use of their stadiums and for the disruption a World Cup would cause their domestic-league seasons. A spokesman for the Australia 2018-2022 bid committee said the dispute will soon be settled. "We are not worried at all," he said.

Kenyon's fine mess

Chelsea's accounts, naturally, provide no clue as to the reasons behind Peter Kenyon's departure as chief executive. He was not, after all, solely responsible for cumulative losses of close to £500m in the five years of Roman Abramovich's ownership. Kenyon was not around at the very start and the £44m lost to the end of June 2008 was clearly a valiant effort towards his break-even target of this season. And we can surely ignore the £12.6m compensation payable to the sacked Luis Felipe Scolari and his backroom staff, widely regarded as Kenyon's men. The club, for whom Kenyon still works in a non-executive and ambassadorial capacity, says none of the above were material to his departure. Whatever was must have been quite a mess indeed.

Silent Sullivan

David Sullivan said a few months ago he "would love to be involved" with West Ham United but he was put off because the club's "debts seem huge". Bound by confidentiality agreements, he has since said nothing publicly. But stories keep coming that he and David Gold have mounted a formal bid, prompting the club's selling agents, Rothschilds, to remind Gold and Sullivan, pictured, about their obligations under the non-disclosure agreement.

Barton's tips not top

When Tony Adams was guest editor on Radio Four last week, he made use of the opportunity to promote the work of his Sporting Chance clinic. Football's panto villain, Joey Barton, spoke well about how it had helped him through his excesses then, without a shred of irony considering Sporting Chance's work with gambling addicts, Barton was called up for a separate live link at 8.25am to give his racing tips. None came close to winning, naturally.